A Bright and Peaceful Night
by The Divine Comedian
Summary: Monstrous Regiment. Stranded away from home during Hogswatch, Polly Perks has all but resigned herself to being miserable when she runs into an old friend. The chatty, caffeinated, déshabillé sort of old friend. They talk. Complicated fluff with tragedy in the background. And gingerbread. And fireworks. Happy holidays!
1. Chapter 1

**Note:** So, after my last fic, wherein I decided that what Monstrous Regiment _really_ needed was a zombie apocalypse, there were requests for something a bit lighter. Something with a little more peace and a little less, you know, gore. Maybe even some light gardening and/or kissing! This is the response. I _tried_ to deliver, which is why Polly and Mal are meeting again on a snowy Hogswatch night with mulled wine and fireworks, but me being me, this is complicated fluff with tragedy in the background. Standalone, but follows up on the events in _Schrödinger's Vampire_ (not required reading), hence the warnings.

No gardening, but there _is_ a garden. No kissing, but... oh, who am I kidding. There's kissing; it's Hogswatch and these two deserve a break.

 **Warnings** (none of this is explicit; all of this is in the past): rape, torture, imprisonment, kidnapping, abandonment, death, trauma.

* * *

 **A Bright and Peaceful Night (Part 1/3)**

It was a bright and peaceful night.

Whenever these brief periods of peace came over Borogravia and the land enjoyed a – however temporary – respite from rationing, PrinceMarmadukePiotrAlbertHansJosephBernhardtWilhemsberg lit up.

Maybe it was the geography, with most of the town was nested in the shaded valleys between the seven hills that gave P'berg, as the locals called it, its full name. Maybe it was the proximity to all those bad decisions that had made Borogravia's recent history very trying indeed. In any case, the citizens of P'berg enjoyed setting things on fire.

Even now, despite the considerable progress of the evening, the streets were bathed in orange light from brightly lit shop fronts displaying wooden toys, glazed gingerbread, soap bars that looked like dessert and smelled like dessert, too, and boxes upon boxes of the little powdered chocolates Borogravia used to be famous for before chocolate was Abominated, and was now starting to become famous for again*. Decorative candle arrangements in the form of galloping hogs broke what little monotony there was (in the years since Nuggan's demise, the town had adopted a decidedly less subtle approach towards Hogswatch decorations). And of course, the newfangled gas lanterns recently delivered from Ankh-Morpork had met a very receptive target audience here.

*To be entirely accurate, it was starting to become famous not for the little powdered chocolates, but for having once been famous for them. It's the sort of fine distinction usually made by up-and-coming Ankh-Morporkians after a pint or three of dwarf ale, quaffed ironically.

The first snow of the winter – the last snow of the year – was dancing in the air, unsure whether it should settle on the cobblestones or melt into sludge. It was Hogswatchnight, and all things considered, Polly was not sad to see this year go.

Her boots crunched where they encountered freshly fallen snow (and other assorted crunchy objects). She usually didn't mind snow in general, provided she was not required to lead another half-baked campaign right through it, but she heavily resented this snow in particular.

Heavy snow in the mountains had already delayed her stage coach into P'berg by more than two days. Here, she should have changed for the coach travelling to Munz. Had it all gone smoothly, she ought to have arrived there late last night. And now, at precisely this minute, she might be sitting in front of the fireplace at The Duchess, with her father and Paul and Shufti and Baby Jack, all wearing silly paper hats. Her family was probably polishing off the last of the mince pies and eggnog before turning to the bitters and the crumbly bottom layer of a huge festive tin of Shufti's famous jam biscuits, possibly missing her, but hopefully reassured by the clacks message she'd sent this afternoon when it became clear she wasn't going to make it.

Because the same snow that had delayed her incoming stage coach, the same snow that fell so innocently on the cobblestones here in P'berg, that very same snow had come down hard on the southbound passages through the Borogravian Ramtops, and all stage coaches to Munz were cancelled until further notice. The now useless coach ticket was getting progressively more crumpled in her coat pocket.

They had mince pies and eggnog in P'berg, of course. But they put cilantro in the mince pies, and served the eggnog in preserving jars with a straw. It was not the same.

To be fair, they did make great mulled wine here, and Polly was currently warming her hands on her second mug while weaving her way through the tourists and locals alike. Despite the crowds, she was feeling quite lonely. Of course she'd felt lonely at the military school during the last eight months, too, amidst dozens of aspiring Blouses who were all about five years younger than her and quite unsure of what they were supposed to do with a national hero, so they mostly got out of her way.

But that was military school, it was to be expected. Hogswatch was no time to be alone.

She passed another of the little mulled wine booths, where a large cauldron suspended over a gas flame emitted heavy ethanol fumesk, when she noticed a curious group of men and women. Huddled between the booth and a large ornamental fountain (whose naked cherubs were wearing woolly Hogfather hats and carrying lit sparklers in their fat fists), they were holding large signs with emphatic, but simplistic messages on them, and, for good measure, shouting the same messages at the pedestrians (who were mostly ignoring them – P'berg was reliable in that regard).

"Nuggan lives!" someone shouted in her ear as she walked by. "Wake up! Repent!"

Of course, Polly thought. There was no oppressive theocracy bleak enough that you wouldn't find a bunch of nutters wanting to go back to it.

She decided she would follow the example of the locals and simply walk on with an uncomfortable expression on her face while the person was ranting in her ear about the evils of celebrating Hogswatch by indulging in gross materialism and worshipping of false gods and how it was all the fault of imperialistic Ankh-Morpork, and Borogravia urgently needed to remember its traditional values.

"Well, someone's getting coals in their stocking this year," Polly muttered under her breath. Okay, so keeping her mouth shut wasn't a skill she'd had practised recently.

"Stockings!" the person shouted, thusly encouraged. "Eggnog! The so-called Hogfather, jazz music, ballet! All Ankh-Morporkian ploys to appease the sheeple while these women in trousers continue to sign away Borogravia's claims to land!"

"And you're welcome." Polly knew she shouldn't let this get to her, but she was starting to get angry despite herself. A sidewards glance at the person who had accosted her revealed it was a young man – well, probably man, though she had learned not to assume – who, if it were not for the recent string of peace treaties with Zlobenia and several Uberwaldean splinter groups, would likely be dying in a trench right now.

A more perceptive person, she thought, might put together her long hair, trousers, and the military cut of her black overcoat, which was part of the lesser known winter dress uniform of Borogravian officers. But as it were, the young man was too far gone to notice or care as he continued with his script.

"All this," he shouted with an all-encompassing hand movement – and if she were being perfectly honest with herself, Polly could sort of see how the P'berg approach to Hogswatch decorations might be off-putting to the casual observer, "all this opposes and perverts the Nugganatic spirit of Hogswatch!"

Polly shouldn't have engaged, but damn it, she hadn't suffered through countless Sunday school lessons with Father Jube to keep her mouth shut now. "Which would be what?" she said. "A night to sit together quietly in the dark with no heating, food, or drink, and thank Nuggan for the things he put us through in the past year?"

"Exactly!" shouted the young man in the same tone of voice, though he seemed a bit suspicious.

"You don't appear very thankful," she pointed out.

"I'm just a vessel that Nuggan has filled with His rage," he shouted. "And I am thankful to pass on His message! Go home, Abomination, and count the things you're thankful for before He takes them away!"

Ah. So he _had_ noticed. It had been a while since Polly had been called an Abomination to her face, and she was fuming, but not because of that. It was the kind of fuming that, in the past, might have meant someone was about to be kicked in the fruit-and-veg.

But he was just a boy, and it was just words, and he would find out soon enough. Peace never lasted long in Borogravia.

"Good day, kid," she said, and pure malice had her add, "And a happy Hogswatch."

She stomped on. Thankful was just about the opposite of what she felt about the year that had passed. Sure, they had achieved a treaty with Uberwald and Ankh-Morpork, in the process rendering harmless one of the most vicious enemies they had ever had the misfortune to rouse. They had achieved the peace and quiet and affluence that allowed the capital to light up like a – well, like a Hogswatch tree –, and young Borogravians to lounge about in its precincts carrying signs and wishing for a return to the old ways. She was thankful for that, mostly.

But it had cost her.

Well, it had cost Mal. And it had cost her Mal, so there was that.

Suddenly a lot less fond of her fellow citizens, she decided to forego the fireworks. If she ever made it to Munz, she was surely going to be prodded about it – P'berg's large Hogswatch fireworks were said to be quite the tourist attraction, and in a country that until very recently had been stifled by Abominations, even a small or medium-sized firework show would be guaranteed rapt attention. P'berg in particular seemed to resent having been so starved for entertainment. In fact, it seemed to Polly that the town was gleefully swinging into the opposite direction (gingerbread and soap and chocolates weren't _all_ they were selling in the shops).

But as much as Polly wasn't going to sit quietly in the dark counting things she was thankful for, she also didn't feel like giving this year an explosive send-off. A large portion of it, she thought, was best forgotten. What she was going to do was, she was going to go back to the hotel, have a bath with one of those cupcake-shaped soap bars, perhaps another mulled wine, and hit the sheets early.

The main square, which held the coach lot, post office, and the sort of hotels that had started out stately but had slightly gone to seed at some point in the past hundred years, was even more crowded than when she had left it in the afternoon. Several more coaches had finally arrived at Borogravia's major connecting hub after massive snow-related delays. The emerging passengers looked stiff, frozen, and most of all lost, holding on to enormous pieces of luggage while it slowly sank in that no outbound coaches would be leaving the city tonight. Several mulled wine booths had popped up as well.

All in all, Polly was glad she had managed to book a hotel room when she'd first arrived in the afternoon.

The lobby was brightly lit by a truly monstrous, glittering chandelier and rows of equally eye-assaulting wall lights. Here, too, was crowded with stranded travellers trying to negotiate a shared space in the broom cupboard with the long-suffering receptionists.

One group in particular stuck out to Polly, their pale complexions and widow's peaks tell-tale signs they had travelled down from Ultz, the last major coach station before the Borogravian-Uberwaldean border. That journey took three days non-stop on back-to-back coaches even when it wasn't snowing. Polly knew (she also knew exactly how long the distance took an exhausted army marching through the snow, which was two weeks and a day).

One of them was currently deep in conversation with two middle-aged, slightly red-faced and giggling ladies of a somewhat scandalous persuasion. Polly had seen them before, they shared a room on her floor and had apparently come down to enjoy a drink with an umbrella in it (by the looks of it, that plan had progressed nicely) before going out to see the fireworks.

But it was the traveller that had peaked her interest. It wasn't the shock of déshabillé black hair – and that infernal descriptor kept cropping up, didn't it – , or the grey wool coat, tailored to form-fitting perfection (a true feat for a winter coat), not military but certainly inspired from more fanciful depictions. It wasn't the tall black boots, which most certainly _were_ military, or the tiny gold-rimmed espresso cup turned between pale fingers, or the sword leaning casually against the table. She'd seen all of that before, and it had been a coincidence every time.

No, it was the fact that this person, even though they had their back turned, had visibly reacted when Polly's eyes had caught them across the lobby. Had accentuated the elegant lounge just a bit, as if they were suddenly conscious of how they were sitting. Had put down the cup, as if to prepare for a pouncing. She only knew one person with that kind of awareness for her surroundings, and she hadn't seen her in nine miserable months.

Polly, even while advancing, experienced a brief internal debate, mainly regarding the question whether someone whose idea of staying in touch was sending one postcard without a return address would be happy to see her. Luckily, the traveller seemed to reach the end of her own deliberation, got up elegantly and turned to her, casually leaning against the back of her chair with a tiny satisfied smile on her face, a hand flicking imaginary dust from her coat sleeve.

It really was Mal.

After awkwardly crossing the rest of the distance, Polly came to a sudden, equally awkward stop in front of the vampire. What was she supposed to do now?

"Mal!" she said. "It really is you! Wow! This is – I mean," her hands were flailing around a bit. "You look well," she finished, biting her tongue a bit. The last time she had seen Mal, the vampire had been decidedly not well. Was it insensitive to draw attention to that?

"And you, Polly," said Mal. The tiny smile turned into a smirk. Of course, watching her usually shouty sergeant stumble for words in her presence had always been a favourite source of entertainment for Mal.

The annoying thing was that Polly really _had_ done well for herself. Regular, if terrible, meals at the military school, a warm bed to sleep in every night, exercise that actually happened on purpose, and close proximity to shower rooms, combs, and even the one or other hair product meant she had finally grown into the person she secretly thought she ought to look like, that person being strong, dressing well, and having great hair.

Polly nodded at the middle-aged ladies sitting with Mal. "Dolores, Edith," she said. "I hope I am not interrupting -"

The pair were making noises as if they were about to pipe up, but Mal just turned on her most distressing smile. "These charming ladies were just about to leave for the fireworks," she said. "Like I said, make sure to watch them from the top of the hill in Wilhelmsberg Park, there's nowhere you can see more of it at once, and they sell magnificent coffee-flavoured popcorn there. Off you pop or you'll miss the countdown!"

"I thought you were coming with us," said Dolores, clearly not deterred by that display of teeth, or by Edith tugging her sleeve, possibly to point out the teeth.

Mal dialled up the smile a notch. "No," she said.

Bemusedly, the two ladies got up in silence and gathered their coats, hats, scarves, muffs, and handbags. It took a while.

"That was rude, Mal," said Polly, when they had finally left. "They're really nice ladies."

"And they're going to have the time of their lives if they do as I said," said Mal. "The view from Wilhelmsberg Park is fantastic. I saw the fireworks from there two years ago, it was a thing of beauty. So much light, so many explosions, and the coffee-flavoured popcorn. It was a decadent dream then, and it's only going to be better this year."

"Still," said Polly. "It's a twenty-minute walk to Wilhemsberg Park."

"And?"

"The countdown is not for three hours."

"Would you prefer me to call them back?" said Mal. "Come sit with me."

She drew up the empty chair next to her, and reflexively, Polly sat down. It wasn't entirely comfortable out here in the lobby, with the draft from the constantly opened doors and the crowds of people pleading with the receptionists, but Mal hadn't finished her coffee yet and Polly was not going to be as rude as Mal.

"So what brings you to our glorious capital at this time of year?" said Mal brightly, when they had both settled. "I would have expected you to spend the holidays in Munz."

"That was the plan, yes," said Polly. "Until it snowed. I expect it's much the same for you. Did you really come down from Ultz? What were you doing there?"

"Oh, this and that," said Mal. "Not much to do around Ultz. Best idea I had there was to board a coach to the capital, and look where _that_ got me."

"You got stranded, huh," said Polly. ""

"Oh, I actually aimed to end up here," said Mal. "I just planned to get her a tiny bit earlier. Like yesterday. I was going to enjoy the sights and atmosphere, drink my weight in specialty coffees, explore the jazz bars and opium dens of Josephstadt, buy an ungodly amount of souvenirs, and spend the past five hours at the opera in a special end-of-the-year production of _The Valkyries_ , eating chocolate-covered espresso beans _._ I had a ticket for the loge and everything. They finished half an hour before I got here, I heard it was beautiful. Seven curtain calls, standing ovations, booklet signing with the dramatic soprano during the after-show reception."

Unbelievable, Polly thought. Mal actually made the idea of spending Hogswatch in P'berg appealing.

"Sorry it didn't work out," she said.

Mal shrugged. "Yeah, me too. But here I am, and, " her face lit up, "here you are. It's good to see you, Polly. Been a while, eh?"

There were so many questions! Unfortunately, Polly didn't know where to begin, and which were even advisable.

"Yeah," she said. "One thing it has certainly been is a while." Did it sound bitter? She didn't want it to sound bitter. Mal had every right to wander off on her own after her honourable discharge from the army, and it wasn't as if Mal hadn't told her that it she would be gone for a while. But Polly had been desperately lonely at military school without Mal, hell, without anyone to talk to about her day. Surrounded by superior officers and adolescent Blouses, you forgot how to talk to actual people about things that were actually going on in the world.

All the while, Mal was looking at her as if she could see straight into her soul. It was, as usual, disconcerting.

"So, did you find a place to stay for tonight?" asked Polly.

At this, Mal finally broke eye contact. "No," she said. "I had a room booked at the Five Seasons -"

"Of _course_ you had."

"Of course I had," agreed Mal. "But they gave it away when I didn't turn up last night. I was just in the process of procuring an alternative when you turned up."

Polly thought back to what Mal had been doing when she turned up.

Oh _Nuggan_.

"After all these years," she said, "you're _still_ in the habit of seducing your way into a convenient bedroom in a pinch?"

Immediately she bit her tongue again. That mulled wine had really done a number on her. Or maybe it was because she had no protocol yet for this type of situation. Could they joke about sex now, or was that still off-limits?

"When I feel like it," said Mal lightly, a tiny smile playing around her lips, possibly directed at Polly's internal squirming.

"Though right now," Mal added, "I'd be happy to seduce my way into a convenient bathtub. Alone. I just spent what felt like a week in an unheated stage coach in the invasive company of increasingly smelly peasants. And a chicken."

"Well, if it helps, you don't look like you did," said Polly.

And it was the truth! Other than the slightly ruffled state of her hair, civilian life seemed to have done Mal good. Espresso cup raised halfway to her lips, she appeared calm and relaxed, her face and hands not quite as skin and bones as last winter. Her clothes were, of course, perfectly spotless without a crease or chicken dropping in sight. And there was – Polly squinted – make up. A subtle, perfectly smudged line of dark kohl around her eyes, a reddish tint to her mouth. The effect was interesting: It didn't make her look more like a woman, or a vampire, if anything, it made these features more ambiguous, because they appeared deliberate rather than incidental.

"Thanks," said Mal, "but I am really a lot sorer than I would like to admit. I think by now the knots in my shoulders have developed knots."

"I have a bathtub," said Polly. "Well, I have a room here, with a bathroom, which has a bathtub. Which I could be convinced to temporarily offer to you."

"Polly Perks," said Mal. "This is so unexpected. You got yourself a hotel room with a bathtub? What happened to barrack girl?"

Polly shrugged. "She became a national hero on a government stipend." So there was one perk to military school she had identified.

Mal sat back. Calculating. Watching her again. Then she stretched her shoulders and something creaked alarmingly (and possibly also deliberately).

"It's an innocent offer, Mal," said Polly. " But best decide before I call dibs."

"Oh, you had me at 'I have a bathtub'," said Mal. "I just needed a moment to scheme how to make this count as me luring my way into your bathtub, not you luring me into your bathtub."

"Should I throw a shoulder rub into the bargain?" said Polly. She was starting to realise the subtle signs of Mal reaching the end of her considerable capacity to stay awake. A tendency to focus on seemingly random points was right at the top of the list.

"That's what I meant," said Mal. "It just doesn't feel proper."

"And since when exactly -?"

Mal shrugged. "It's just that I recently spent a week in the company of my mother and it's like I actually remember all the stupid rules for once. It'll pass."

"You spent a week with Ilsa," said Polly. "Oh god. On purpose?"

Despite Mal casually calling her that, Polly had a hard time accepting Ilsa Bátoriová as Mal's mother. She was the capital's vampire queen, a dark looming presence located in a dark looming castle across the river, high up in the first outcroppings of the Borogravian Ramtops, and one of the few vampires intelligent enough not to hunt locally. The local youth even habitually dared each other to go to her balls. They usually returned thinking she was charismatic, and charming, and just moody. It was exactly the kind of thing Ilsa craved: the admiration of the young. Too young to know better.

It was probably why she made a serial habit of stealing small children from their parents and grooming them into adulthood to turn into vampires on their twenty-first birthday. From then, they wouldn't grow, would evolve, would forever adore her.

In the case of Mal, the plan had backfired a bit.

"Let me just quickly get over my identity crisis and into that bath," said Mal, "and I'll tell you all the sordid details. Do you have soap?"

Wordlessly, Polly presented the cupcake-shaped soap bar she had bought earlier that day. Of course, it was cappuccino-flavoured. Exactly where had her thoughts been?

"Oh yes," said Mal to the soap cupcake that had inexplicably changed hands without Polly even noticing. "I expect this will work out nicely." She looked up to Polly. "Take me to your room."

* * *

 _To be continued._


	2. Chapter 2

**A Bright and Peaceful Night (Part 2/3)**

Upstairs in her tiny hotel room, it was considerably less awkward than Polly had anticipated. Then again, they had shared a tent for years that was so tiny you couldn't put on your socks without kicking the other in the face. Mal had beelined for the bathroom, uttering exclamations of delight at its marble interior and imitation gold fixtures and, in a rather patronising manner, overlooking the leaky, rusted siphon underneath the washbasin, the cobwebs in the corners, the cracks in the tiles, and the mould in said cracks. She'd then set to work on firing up the gas-heated hot water boiler. Polly had been slightly intimidated by it, but maybe it was Mal's experience with large and complicated coffee machines that made her fearless in the face of elaborate piping.

True enough, within not even twenty minutes, the boiler had gargled and deposited an alarming quantity of hot water in the bathtub.

Polly had then proceeded to throw two fluffy hotel towels and a bathrobe at Mal, all of which happened to be pale pink, and told her to have a nice bath.

And since then, she had been waiting for Mal to have her bath, which was admittedly a tad more awkward. Carrying on a conversation through the closed bathroom door wasn't going so well since Mal seemed to enjoy spending a large portion of her bath time with her head underneath the water. This habit rather impeded talking, and Polly was alone with her thoughts.

She was sitting in one of two armchairs in front of the window, to the backdrop of dignified splashing and, once, a muffled "Oh, this is _magnificent_!". Polly had been thinking of ordering up another mulled wine, but then imagined what Mal would have to say about someone taking perfectly good wine and defiling it with sugar and spices and cheap fruit juice, so she had ordered up a bottle of red instead. Since then, though, she had been idly staring out of the window.

Of course she'd dreamed of seeing Mal again, but her dreams had never been quite clear on what she was realistically supposed to do when that opportunity eventually presented itself. Because there was an elephant in the room, and like a proper elephant, she didn't know what to do about it. It seemed to be quite a large elephant in quite a small room. She'd tried ignoring it, tried forgetting about it, but these only seemed like viable options until you tried getting to the door.

Rather than using it for its intended purpose, Polly kept turning the corkscrew over in her hand, thinking, thinking, sizing up the elephant, because now seemed to be her last chance. When Mal emerged, they would have to talk about _something_.

The shape of it seemed simple enough. Towards the end of last winter's campaign, Mal had gone missing during a stupidly dangerous spying trip. Six weeks after she was supposed to report back, Polly had finally found her, dead on the floor of a filthy cell in Uberwald – here, Polly noted dimly she'd poked herself with the pointy end of the corkscrew –, the vampire's starved body marked by prolonged and inventive torture. Even months later, at school, Polly still woke regularly in the dead of the night, her dreams supplying her with vivid reconstructions of what had left these marks.

Something else had been damaged, too, something that Mal's vampiric healing powers were not touching. Polly remembered how exhaustingit had been, talking to her; her memory of the imprisonment was all over the place, the information scattered and disconnected and sometimes plain wrong. And the vampire resented help. Resented her. In the end, Mal had walked away from the army, from their friendship, from the budding little romance they had carefully, patiently grown between them before Chris Clogston had sent Mal on that infernal mission.

And that was _fine_. Mal could go wherever she pleased. Walking away had even made sense at the time. But now that 'wherever she pleased' actually included a bathroom on the other side of a thin wall from Polly, what was Polly to do? What was she supposed to say to her? And having spent the last nine months talking about nothing that wasn't either school work or the weather, to no-one she cared about, could she even have a conversation with Mal without stumbling over her more complicated thoughts?

"Penny for your thoughts," said a voice in the dark.

Well, "dark". The lavishly illuminated main square outside the window was doing a nice job of lighting up the room all by itself.

"You really don't want to know," said Polly, turning around.

Mal was lounging comfortably against the bathroom door, slightly blurred in a cloud of fragrant steam, wearing that fluffy pink bathrobe like a royal ermine coat. Her feet were naked, toes curling into the thick carpet. Her black hair, wet and thoroughly towelled, was sticking up in all directions, but even as Polly was watching, the vampire dragged a hand through her hair and it miraculously settled.

Polly was reminded of the day she first met Maladict in that terrible inn in Plün. That had also been a good lounge, thoroughly relaxed, but with an intense focus on his surroundings. Not as wary, though. The term 'youthful innocence' came up, but was quickly rejected as a descriptor for young Maladict.

"Forgive me for being such a – what was the word you used?" said Mal.

A number of expressions presented themselves, but Polly thought she knew what was coming. "Know-it-all?" she supplied helpfully. Well, it was that or 'overbearing tit'.

"Well, forgive me for being such a... know-it-all," said Mal drily, "but as you correctly guessed, I already know what you're thinking. If it helps, I feel the same. The whole situation is a bit odd."

She walked over to the other chair, on the way snatching up a pair of thick socks from Polly's open suitcase in a manner that so thoroughly reminded Polly of old times, it simultaneously put her more and less at ease. Mal sat down in the opposite chair, pulled on Polly's socks – which, Polly was relieved to notice, did not have holes in either the toes or heels –, put her wool-clad feet up on the rickety table, and leant back, fixing Polly with her stare.

"So let's get that out of the way," said Mal. "I am _fine_. I'm not confused anymore. I love coffee again. So everything is fine. And no, I have forgotten exactly none of it." Impossibly, she smiled. "How about you?"

"Same," said Polly. "Fine." She was trying not to let on that the very question made her dip back into that terrible initial confusion, when she had spent considerable time feeling guilty for feeling so affected in the first place. Because it hadn't been her that had been hurt, and it wasn't her who should be having nightmares about it.

"And are you lying?" said Mal.

"A bit," said Polly. "Are you?"

Mal held her glance for a moment, then shrugged. "A bit," she said. "But I'm better than I was. I travel. I get things done. I enjoy the opera. When I get there in time, I mean."

"Romance?"

Mal taxed her. "Affairs," she said eventually. "You?"

"Um." But Polly _had_ started it. "Affair," she said. "Just the one."

She didn't know why Mal smiled like this all of a sudden. It was a very human smile. It looked _fond_. It also looked like she was in on a secret that Polly wasn't. Which was odd, because this was a secret that Polly was finally in on, that was the point.

"Details?" said Mal.

"Wine?" said Polly.

"Yes," said Mal, thankfully foregoing the obvious joke.

Polly was glad for the chance to give her hands something to do. She uncorked the bottle and poured them both a glass. They clinked glasses with a somewhat disappointing sound, something between a _ding_ and a _bop_.

"Tell me about that school of yours," said Mal.

While Polly was a bit suspicious Mal was letting go of her previous line of inquiry so easily, she was also relieved, so she did exactly that. And bit by bit, it occurred to her just how much big a hole the vampire had left in her life. It hadn't just been the aborted romance, the holding hands while pretending to sleep, or even Mal's level-headed competence as her corporal.

It was the conversations. Mal wasn't always the best listener in the world, but she knew how to keep a conversation going, and when she was properly caffeinated she could direct an incredible amount of attention on Polly, which could be immensely helpful in getting to the core of a problem. Or sometimes just immensely distracting.

It wasn't as if Polly didn't like military school, she explained. (So what _did_ she like?) She liked learning. Geography and history and mathematics and foreign languages. She didn't much care for the theatre lessons, but the adolescent Blouses seemed to enjoy them very much. (But did she get to dress up as a girl?) No, Polly explained, these roles were usually snatched up very fast and in any case she didn't really feel like strapping balloons to her chest. (So what else was good?) Last summer, a selection of them got to go to Ankh-Morpork for some practical courses with the Watch, Polly said. That had been fun. (Fun, eh?) Yes, fun. (An encouraging grin.) Okay, that was when the affair, singular, had taken place, it wasn't bloody likely at that school, was it? Would Mal _stop_ looking so knowing anytime soon? (So was it good?) Yes, she had been very nice, very focused on the task at hand, very patient with Polly. A glorious three days it was. (A vampire?) For heaven's sake.

Polly knew she was blushing. She just hoped that between the orange light from the window and the wine it wasn't too noticeable – oh, who was she kidding.

"Well _done_ , sarge,"said Mal, grinning.

"It wasn't because she was a vampire," said Polly, and then, not sure if it was helping or hindering her case, she added,. "And she was reformed! I checked."

At the time, it certainly _had_ felt like a very odd way of getting over what wasn't, technically, a breakup. But it was the truth. Polly was just terrible at flirting (although, in years with Mal, she had become somewhat comfortable with being flirted at). Naturally, it was statistically likely this would happen with someone who didn't mind taking the lead.

Thankfully, Mal decided to not let her squirm much longer.

"So what don't you like about the school?" said Mal.

"How come you think I don't like it?" asked Polly.

"Whenever people say that it's not like they don't like something," said Mal, "they usually don't like something. So what is it? The posh seventeen year olds? The food? The push ups before breakfast?"

"I can do fifty-two now," said Polly. "In a row and everything. Nose to the ground."

"And I won't pretend that doesn't turn me on a little," said Mal drily. The vampire could probably do a thousand with the help of inhuman strength and caffeine. "Anyway, back to the question, what don't you -"

"Military strategy," said Polly.

After the initial surprise wore off, Mal adopted an interested facial expression. "Of all the things to dislike at military school," she said. "How come?"

"It's complicated," said Polly.

"Try me," said Mal. "I'm extremely intelligent."

Polly allowed herself a small sigh. "They don't see people, they see resources," she said. "They're like Clogston, only she's clever and they're only cruel. They love exchanges. A pawn for an army, an army for a bigger army, a bigger army for half a country. Occupy half a country and you have a new war in the making. The Blouses are eating it up, but if you have seen... if you have seen a battlefield, it's...," she was looking for the right word, failed to find it, and said, "hard."

"It's big picture stuff," said Mal.

"I felt better looking out for the details," said Polly. "The people. That way, I know I'm on _someone's_ side. Someone who deserves it."

"But it won't win you the war," said Mal.

"Kind of did," said Polly.

"It didn't, Pol. Playing around with the big picture did," said Mal. "So what if you don't like how they do it, you won't be able to save anyone from their schemes unless you stick it out now."

Polly stared at her. "Yeah, thanks for reminding me," she said. She hadn't been able to save Mal from Clogston's plan, even though she'd seen how dangerous it was, and she wasn't even sure whether the reminder should be making her feel offended or guilty.

"It won you the war," said Mal softly. "It doesn't mean you have to do it the same way next time."

"I won't!" said Polly. "Obviously."

"But can you stick it out?" said Mal. "Remember that otherwise the future of Borogravia will be in the capable hands of your fellow students."

Polly pondered this. Exactly none of this was what she wanted to hear. "When they're paying me for being able to disagree with them in a more effective manner?" said Polly. "I'd be stupid not to."

Maybe it was what she _needed_ to hear, but she'd have to mull that over when she didn't have a vampire in a pink bathrobe staring at her in the semi-darkness from across the table.

"That's the spirit!" said Mal. "Nobody says you have to do what they say. Bit of a novel concept in the army, but here we go."

"Anyway, you mentioned _affairs_ ," said Polly, in order to steer the conversation away from the lonely, sad place that was military school, and because she felt it was Mal's turn to squirm. "Any of them interesting?"

Mal shrugged, unfazed by the sudden change of topic. "They always are, or I wouldn't be doing it. Them," she said with a bit of a wink. "But the earth didn't change. None of them meant anything beyond the moment itself."

"That's the way you prefer it, isn't it?" said Polly.

Mal fixated on her over the rim of her wine glass. "You really want to know why, do you?"

"Wait a minute," said Polly. "Why what? I'm not following."

"Yes, you are," said Mal.

"Yes, I am," said Polly, with a sigh. Apparently, she had steered the conversation away from one lonely, sad place right into another. "But it's okay, Mal. You don't have to explain yourself."

"No, you deserve to know," said Mal. "Why I have these meaningless flings, but rejected you."

Yes, that _had_ hurt, but more importantly, Polly rather thought she was over it. She figured it had something to do with Mal absolutely refusing to be pitied, unable to be with someone who had seen her at her worst. Maybe scared it would forever come up. And at the time, Polly couldn't have guaranteed it wouldn't, when she herself kept having these nightmares that she didn't, for lack of a better word, deserve.

"Okay," said Polly. "Tell me why."

"It will sound incredibly self-serving and unbearably noble," said Mal.

"Like that's new," said Polly.

Mal didn't respond right away. Instead, she got up to walk over to the bed, where she had deposited her grey coat. She rummaged in the pockets, then came up with a tobacco pouch and a block of paper squares before sitting back down in her armchair. Her hands thus occupied with rolling a cigarette that Polly expected was going to be perfect, she finally spoke.

"What the Uberwaldeans did to me was monstrous," she said.

"I know," said Polly.

"But I survived."

"Yes," said Polly.

"But," said Mal, apparently extremely concentrated, on her roll-up, "surviving isn't everything."

"How do you mean?"

Mal shrugged. "I always liked sex." At this, she looked up briefly. "I swear this made sense when I said it in my head."

Polly had a horrible notion that she knew where this was going. This issue had come up exactly twice between them, and both times it had been raw and terrible. Now, almost a year later... She tried to give an encouraging, if somewhat helpless, nod.

"Well, you know what they did," said Mal.

"Yes, I do," said Polly. "You don't have to -"

Fortunately, Mal seemed to want to skip over the details as much as Polly. "It was like they'd taken bits out of me," she said quietly. "Imaginary bits. Like there was less of me left... I couldn't bear it. Like they'd taken something _important_. But I'd had meaningless sex before, and I thought I could probably live with the thought that they'd only taken something I didn't even care about. So these _affairs._ I went and made it meaningless. But you know what that's like now, don't you, Pol?"

"That was without meaning," said Polly. "Not without respect."

"Exactly," said Mal.

Her voice was steady, but her thin pale fingers were now crumbling tobacco leaves, and Polly realised she had been wrong about one thing. This was not going to be one of Mal's perfect roll-ups, no. This was going to be a truly terrible roll-up.

"It wouldn't have been meaningless with you, Polly," said Mal into the silence. "Maybe it wouldn't have been as glorious and deep and the best thing ever as it could have been before, but it was still too much. Too much meaning, I mean. At the time."

There was one question at the forefront of Polly's thoughts, but she didn't voice it. _At the time_? Did Mal see this changing anytime soon?

She realised Mal was looking at her, and worse, that she had that faintly amused air about her. "Not this year," she said.

"You thought-reading _git_ ," said Polly.

"Intuitive git," said Mal, "if you please."

"Well, even if -," said Polly. "I don't know if I could. In any case, I'm not sure I could provide _glorious and deep and the best thing ever_."

"You never know until you try," said Mal. "But in any case. Not this year. No need to make up your mind on this just yet."

Polly sighed. "Please don't smoke that thing in here," she said.

"I wasn't going to," said Mal. "I have manners and all. No, I was going to go out."

"I thought you were tired," said Polly. She didn't particularly want Mal to leave just yet. While she had been looking forward to an early night, there was no way in hell she was going to be able to sleep now, while her head was swimming with new information.

Also, a small but persistent part of her was insisting that letting Mal leave now would make her, Polly Perks, the disc's most colossal idiot of all times. And that was a title she was going for.

"Oh, I am," said Mal. "Tired and cramped. But what an opportunity to see this year go up in flames and explosions, eh? I would hate to miss it. Can I tempt you into coming with me?"

The small but persistent part of her was relieved beyond belief. For some reason it now advised playing it cool. "Not if you're wearing that," said Polly.

Mal snorted. She got up to dress like she used to in the army, within a blurred thirty seconds and still ending up impeccable and, of course, she'd kept Polly's socks on.

"Better?" she said, casually buttoning her coat.

"Better than a fluffy pink bathrobe," said Polly. "Consider me tempted. Let's go!"

* * *

 _To be continued._


	3. Chapter 3

**A Bright and Peaceful Night (Part 3/3)**

They didn't walk up to the hill in Wilhelmsberg Park because Mal knew an even better place.

Of course she did.

With now maybe an hour to midnight, the crowds were extreme. The whole town – plus a considerable amount of tourists, both voluntary and stranded – seemed to want to be somewhere else than they were. The crowds were slow moving, like syrup running down a spoon, and about as sticky. In addition, the snowing had picked up and that wasn't helping. It was breathtaking.

Literally breathtaking, thought Polly, as a couple of trolls momentarily crushed her between them, profusely apologising. She had accidentally kicked over discarded mugs of mulled wine at least twice, her coat sleeve was sporting melted wax from a candle ornament, and her long scarf had collided with candyfloss carried at child height.

Mal, of course, slipped through the crowds with unobtainable ease, somehow keeping up a normal walking speed. It was really hard to keep up. Fortunately, vampires, even if they were as short as Mal, tended to stick out, or Polly would have lost her ages ago.

Eventually realising that the vast majority of her clever remarks were met with distant silence rather than enthusiastic agreement, Mal turned and waited for her. Despite her sudden stop, absolutely no-one bumped into the vampire. Of course.

Polly took her offered hand, not without butterflies fluttering guiltily in her stomach. From that moment on it was much easier. Polly still didn't know whether Mal was just particularly skilled at navigating a crowd, or whether the crowd parted for her out of some collective evolutionary desire to keep out of trouble.

Naturally, she asked about it.

"You know," said Mal, "I never even thought about it. Is it not like this for everybody?"

"Does it look like it?" said Polly. "Do you honestly think these people walk this slowly on purpose?"

Mal looked around her with an expression of fond superiority. "You know, if everyone sped up at the same time, they'd all get there much faster..." she said.

As they got close to the top of Wilhelmsberg, Polly noticed they were casually drifting towards the side of the alley - well, Mal was casually drifting, Polly was just drifting along with her -, where a garden wall bordered the cobblestones. Here, eventually, Mal ducked into a doorway, pulling Polly after her. Innocently watching the passing crowd, Mal reached up, taking a key – vintage, well-used, a little rusty; like old love - from the top of the brick wall, and unlocked the door behind her back. They slipped through, Mal closing and locking the door behind them before anyone in the crowd could notice or react.

Polly found herself in a beautiful sloped garden covering a fair bit of the hill side. It resembled their hotel, she thought: Something that had once been stately but was now just a tiny bit savage. It was also empty of people, though they could still hear murmur and occasional explosions.

"Finally," said Mal. "So many people! What do you think?"

Polly had no words for now. Mal turned from the door towards the view, and said, softly but audibly, "Oops."

It was by all means beautiful, Polly thought. They had entered at one end of the garden, where a low stone wall was marking - though not securing - the border between a sloped meadow and a rather more vertical drop; a stone bench stood invitingly. From here, they could oversee a large part of the city, beautifully illuminated. It helped that, from this far up, they weren't able to tell that half the lights were actually in the shape of dancing hogs.

Front and centre of their view, however, was dominated by the Borogravian Ramtops, where a dark looming castle was tastefully cast in white and blue lights.

"Well," said Polly conversationally, "I bet we'd have an even better view from up there."

"It is amazing," agreed Mal. "You can oversee all seven hills of P'berg. Including this one. We should probably wave hello to my old mum."

"You know, I was still going to ask," said Polly. "I was just waiting for a good opportunity to bring it up."

"And I thought I was doing such a good job avoiding the topic," said Mal.

"Yes, you were," said Polly in what she hoped was a flattering tone. "But since you brought it to the centre of my attention, quite _literally_... what on earth were you doing at Ilsa's for a week?"

Mal exhaled slowly, still transfixed by the view. "I told you I planned to return to the castle," she said. "Last time we talked."

"Yes," said Polly. "But that was to save your sister."

"She is not my sister," said Mal. "She's – well, you know what she is."

Polly did. Apart from anything else, she was a punishment, a human-shaped guilt trip. Recently turned twenty-one, she – Polly called her Mal's sister, Mal didn't call her anything – had been the child Ilsa had kidnapped after Mal had left.

"And did you get to her in time before Ilsa -"

"No, I didn't get to her before Ilsa turned her," said Mal. "But as it turns out, amazingly, Ilsa didn't get to her, either. The kid just packed her bags and left on her own. I'm so proud." She sighed. "I didn't know that when I went, though. Ilsa was in, and I wasn't going to waste the trip, so I asked her for help."

" _You what_ ," said Polly flatly.

"That's what she said," said Mal. A dark grin flashed up briefly, before she became serious. "She heard what happened. To me, I mean."

"Oh god," said Polly. "How terrible was she about it?"

Mal hesitated. "She wasn't," she said eventually. "It was extremely surprising. But she hears lots of things, she's very well-connected. I asked her some questions, she gave me some answers. I now know more about that Uberwaldean splinter group than I could have ever found out by spying. If you find yourself up against them again, let me help. And -"

"What?" said Polly, thinking if the Borogravian army ever went up against that Uberwaldean splinter group again, there was no way in hell she was going to involve Mal.

"It's funny," said Mal. "I don't think she realises what monster she is. I mean, she said she never knew anything was wrong until the day I ran away. And, you know, everything was wrong, every day; one might have expected her to notice. But occasionally – occasionally she is _brilliant_. The morning I left, I was taking my coffee in the drawing-room and she had a new decoration on the mantelpiece." Mal smiled. "A jar of dust. Three guesses who."

"Lieutenant von Unterberg," said Polly.

"Well, _that_ was boring, thanks, Pol," said Mal. "But that wasn't his name, you know. And as it turns out, he's not a mere lieutenant. He was their general. General Antonin sous la Colline. I guess the Uberwaldeans want him back, but they'll have to take it up against Ilsa, and if they do –" she laughed suddenly, "– I don't think they'll know what hit them. She's rather attached to her new paperweight."

She paused for a moment, apparently pondering her words. "I thought it would have to be me," she said. "And I'm _thankful,_ and that is the last thing I want to feel towards her. I'm thankful I don't have to be a killer anymore, but I was so confused I left without a word. Again. And there's one more thing."

Mal brushed aside the snow on the bench, than sat down, motioning for Polly to do the same.

"I bullied her into giving me one more answer," said Mal. "I guess she really did feel sorry, because I feel I've been asking her tis question my whole life. It was always this big secret, and now it isn't. She always claimed she alone made me."

"She told you who your parents were," said Polly.

"Correct," said Mal. "And I went to find them. I mean, first I argued with myself for about a week, but then I thought, it's almost Hogswatch and I have nothing better to do and maybe they'd be happy to meet me. So I went."

There was silence, or as much silence as was possible in this town, with the persistent murmur of a multitude of voices beyond the garden wall.

"And did you find them?" Polly asked after a while.

"In a way," said Mal. "I found their graves. They've been gone for more than thirty years, flu wiped out the whole family. Mum, dad, grandpa. Two small children. Well," she said, shaking her head as if to free it. "Could have been worse. Could have been three."

"I'm sorry, Mal," Polly said softly.

"Well, it's history now," said Mal. "Anyway, I just got back today. Crossed the border on foot, boarded the coach in Ultz, spent a week travelling with someone else's chicken on my lap which, believe me, gave me a _lot_ of time to ponder this from all sides. So here I am."

It took Polly a moment to process this. "You went from your parents' house to Ultz and crossed a border on the way," she said. "So your parents are -"

"Uberwaldean," said Mal. "And so am I. I was a bit surprised myself. At least now we know why I look like such a stereotypical vampire even though I wasn't born one."

"It was still dangerous to go there," said Polly.

"You know, Pol," said Mal, "when I'm not in the army wearing a bright red uniform, I'm a lot less bothered about borders."

"How do you know Ilsa told the truth?" said Polly, because lying about this was exactly the kind of joke Ilsa would find funny.

"I don't remember them," said Mal. "I don't remember what my parents looked like, or the name they gave me. But I went to the house, and I knew there would be a crab apple tree in the garden. An iron swing set. And a duck pond." She looked up to the blue-lit castle in the distance. "I used to dream about that house, only the house. No-one in it was moving. I drank from the duck pond because there was no water anywhere else. She made the dreams stop. Maybe she should have explained them."

Polly was going to say something, but of course Mal noticed before she even started talking. The vampire raised a hand to silence her.

"I did the maths," she said. "When I crossed the border. I didn't even want to touch that problem, but there it was, and anyway the scenery was extremely boring and the maths was extremely simple. I turned thirty-six last winter. They died thirty-two years ago, in the winter. Ilsa took me in when I was four, in the winter. And the flu epidemic was real, I checked the records. It wasn't Ilsa who killed them. It was Ilsa who saved me from that house where my family lay dead in their beds."

Finally – Polly had been wondering for a while where it had gone – Mal got out the scraggly cigarette she had rolled, and lit it with a match. Inhaling deeply, she still didn't look up. "Why would anyone lie about _that_ ," she said. "I thought she kidnapped me from my parents. The kindest thing she ever did in her life, and turned it into the worst. That's not just keeping up appearances, that's -"

"Crazy," said Polly. "We talked about this. You know she's crazy. Hell, you know she's not above kidnapping in general."

"A vastly different kind of crazy than I thought," said Mal. "But! Moving on. A vampire's life is by definition a tragedy. It doesn't do good to dwell on memories when they're half guesswork and lies."

"No," said Polly.

"What do you mean, no?" asked Mal curiously, smoke curling up around her.

"Not moving on yet," said Polly. She'd listened for a whole evening, but the pieces were finally fitting together. "You spent a whole week with that woman, yes? It shows."

Mal's face remained perfectly blank. "How do you mean?"

"'A vampire's life is by definition a tragedy'," quoted Polly. "That's her words, isn't it?"

"They're wise words," said Mal. "Between immortality and blood lust, you usually end up alone. Listen -"

"No, you listen," said Polly. "You talked to me – talked _at_ me – all evening. But I had a mother like that. When people like her tell you simple truths about the world, what they really tell you is the truth about their simple minds. And just because it _sounds_ profound doesn't mean it's not stupid. Did you think about what Ilsa was doing in an Uberwaldean border village during the worst flu outbreak in a hundred years?"

"I assumed she was hunting," said Mal.

"She was _looking_ for tragedy," said Polly. "She wanted to create life in the only way she understood: By creating a story. She saved you because you fit that story, a story about a vampire, by her definition a tragedy."

"Then why wouldn't she tell me about it?" said Mal. "She was always very clear about -"

"Because she wasn't going for harmony. She wanted you to resent her. She wanted you to try and break free, and I bet three years worth of my stipend that she expected you to fail."

"Okay," said Mal, in the tone of some going along with something just to see where it went. "Then why tell me now?"

"She didn't tell you," said Polly. "She told you where to go."

"But she knows I'm really clever," said Mal. "She expected me to figure it out."

"If she wanted to tell you, why not sit you down in the drawing-room and, you know, _tell you_? The whole truth? Over tea?" said Polly. "She didn't do that, did she? She went for tragedy again. _She sent you to the house of your childhood nightmares_."

"Huh," said Mal, pondering. "Still. Why now?"

Polly could feel her expression soften, trying not to go overboard because the vampire really didn't do well with an excess of sympathy. It was so obvious. To her, at least.

"Because you're vulnerable now," she said. "Because you're adrift. You're looking for directions. But she's misdirecting you again. Right now you're relieved to know the truth, relieved to know your mother saved you once, relieved that she took care of the Uberwaldean general for you. That's how she's drawing you in again. But she's already plotting for the future, and you know happy endings are not her style. She's a thousand years old. I suppose it must get boring." Polly drew a much-needed breath. "I might be wrong. But be careful mindful you feel about her. You can read anyone else, but you're _terrible_ at reading yourself."

There was another pause. Snowflakes used the opportunity to settle on the two of them.

"Polly, you're _brilliant_ ," said Mal finally. "More than that, you're right. I, ah, anticipated your advice a little, _sarge_ , but until now I was wondering whether _I_ was the crazy one. So thank you."

Polly frowned. "Anticipated my advice?" It felt like that ought to have been her job.

"She invited me to her Hogswatch ball," said Mal. "They used to be a blast. Very _questionable_ entertainment, I hear the town youth loves it."

"Oh for the love of -," said Polly. " _That's_ why you're in the capital?"

"No," said Mal. "I didn't come here for _her_. I had enough of her for at least another decade. As I said, sarge, I anticipated your advice. I thought you'd point out that she lied to me all my life. That she spins my history whichever way suits her mood at the time, and you're right. And after the year I unfortunately had, I'm sick of this. No more lies, no more stories, just the truth. So here, take this."

And with that, she reached in her coat pocket, dug out a familiar-looking crumpled paper rectangle, and handed it to Polly.

"What's that?" said Polly.

"The truth," said Mal. "I didn't come here for her."

Polly unfolded it. It was a connecting ticket for the stage coach from the capital to Munz.

Slightly bemused, Polly dug around in her own coat pocket until her fingers found her identical ticket.

"What -," she said.

"It wasn't a coincidence we met," said Mal. "It was a coincidence we met _here_. I didn't buy a ticket for the opera, I already saw the show before I left for Uberwald – it was fantastic, you should absolutely go. Instead I bought a ticket to go to Munz because that's were you always go for Hogswatch unless you're camped out in the snow somewhere. Well, Munz didn't happen, obviously, and it really ruined my day until I met Dolores and Edith and they told me they had a decorated war hero on their floor. They recognised you from the newspaper, did you think that wouldn't happen?"

Polly narrowed her eyes. "So you don't _actually_ have eyes in the back of your head?" she said, as she recalled what looked like Mal noticing her standing on the other end of the hotel lobby even with her back turned towards Polly.

"Sorry," said Mal. "But as you said. I read people. I watched Dolores and Edith, Dolores and Edith watched the door, there you were. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you. I had a whole list and everything. I wanted to make sure you are happy at military school, and I wanted to apologise for worrying you so last winter, and I wanted to explain some things now that I had the peace and quiet to understand them better, and I wanted your to hear your perspective on this whole Uberwald situation."

Mal dragged a nervous ( _nervous_? Polly thought) hand through her hair. "But most of all, " she added, " _I missed you._ I want to be your friend again. If you're amenable." There was suddenly a touch of nervousness in her voice, a rare occurrence. "Are you?"

"Mal," said Polly, with a sigh. It seemed she had her vampire back, for better or worse.

"Yes?"

"Let's go over to the park. I'll buy you coffee-flavoured popcorn, all right? And we'll watch this year go up in flames and explosions."

"And is that a yes?"

"A thousand times," said Polly.

Mal nodded, a slow grin spreading over her face. Turning their backs on the blue-lit castle, they re-joined the slow-moving crowd outside the garden door, and despite being so late, they had made it through the thicket of people all the way up to the hill in Wilhemsberg Park when the countdown started.

For some reason, Polly found herself enthusiastically shouting along with the crowd, counting down the seconds until this year finally ended and the next began. (In Munz it had usually been a more sombre affair, but she had always liked this bit). Mal of course wasn't doing anything so undignified, but she was smiling.

When the fireworks exploded in the sky, accompanied by cheering and whooping from the crowds, Polly pounced. Carefully, but it was a pounce. Fortunately Mal had been prepared for something like this, and did not topple over. Her arms wrapped around Polly, holding her close.

"Happy new year, Mal," she said into her hair.

"Happy new year, Polly," Mal replied, somewhere in the vicinity of her neck. "Now pay attention to the fireworks, they are beautiful and very expensive for a post-war country."

They were. Beautiful, that was. Blue and red and green and purple and yellow and a thousand shades in between, they blossomed in the sky like huge flowers. Around them, the smell of popcorn and sulphur, the sounds of cannon balls and jingling bells, and the still dancing snow occupied all senses at once. And Mal was still holding her hand.

Polly eventually tore her eyes from the stunning display of collective pyromania and fixed them on Mal instead. The vampire's profile was sharply outlined against the night sky, occasionally illuminated in this or that jaunty colour, and in this moment she looked oddly serious. But not sad.

Of course, Polly realised Mal wasn't okay yet. She _looked_ okay. The vampire could fool most everyone, because years of reform had given her the kind of control you could bend steel round. But she couldn't fool Polly, because Polly wasn't made of steel, she was made of thinking and determination. And, as she was just starting to realise, Mal didn't _want_ to fool Polly. Not anymore.

But she was getting better. And so was Polly.

She realised belatedly that Mal was looking back at her. It was an intense sort of look. Pondering, too. Something was shifting.

"Oh, to hell with it," said the vampire. "It was coming anyway."

Mal lifted up a hand to Polly's face. The hand was extremely cold after prolonged exposure to the outsides, and the vampire was biting her lip. Everyone else would have looked nervous doing that. Mal, as usual, just looked confident.

"Seriously," said Polly. "Now?" She was steadfastly ignoring the shivers related to the cold appendage deposited on her face because of a wild hope this was going to turn out good.

Mal shrugged, leaning in casually. "I don't mind a happy ending," she said, her face just inches from Polly's. "If you agree, obviously. Do you?"

For the life of her, Polly could not think of anything intelligent to say. Not that she wanted to talk. So she just closed the distance.

This ought to have been their first kiss, but Polly thought it also worked as a second. They held on tightly, somewhat suffocated but not in the least discouraged by the bulky presence of two winter coats, scarves, and assorted jumpers between them, The actual kissing was an intriguing mix of soft and sharp, of warm and cool, of careful and, Polly couldn't help but realise, cocky. Fingers curled in Polly's hair as if to make a nest, the smell of cappuccino soap and expensive tobacco dominated over the popcorn and gunpowder. And throughout, she felt Mal trying and failing to suppress a grin, and that made her so happy she could have laughed.

She didn't. It was difficult enough already to carry on kissing like this, surrounded as they were by fireworks and a cheering audience.

"Good?" she said, once she had come up for air.

Mal seemed to think for a moment. "Remember when I said _not this year_?" she said eventually.

"That was last year," Polly pointed out helpfully.

"Correct," said Mal. "And I would like to amend it thus: This year. Definitely this year."

Around them, the crowd broke into a song about a great big fish.

* * *

 _The end_.


End file.
